Not a Ghost of a Chance
by WithoutTheBeard
Summary: How Peeves came to fear the Bloody Baron (my first try at a romance a strange love triangle)
1. Expressed in a Poem

Not a Ghost of a Chance  
(How Peeves came to fear the Bloody Baron)  
  
Peeves slowly looked around the corner of the door. "Yes!" a helpless, innocent first-year was walking alone down the hall. Peeves fingered the dung bomb in his transparent hand. He rolled it into the middle of the hallway in front of the boy.  
  
"One lemon gum drop. two lemon gum drop." Peeves counted to himself.  
  
POW!  
  
Peeves jumped out the class room starting his song, "Little stinky first year kid, ought to see what Peevesie did, Your new odor is sure to please, If your new friends are rats and fleas, Getting it off will be a difficult task, to clean your ears and scrub down in your."  
  
"PEEVES!" A loud voice bellowed interrupting his song.  
  
Who dared interrupting his song! It had taken him an hour to come up with the song and he had not even got to the chorus yet! Peeves swirled around in anger  
  
Ms. McGonagall was standing in the hall with her hands on her hips starring at Peeves and the first-year. "What is going on here Peeves?"  
  
Peeves froze where he was, "Why am I up here when I could be down there on that glorious floor?" Peeves sighed to himself, but glanced at that stern face and shook himself back to reality. "Just a little poltergeist and student bonding professor." Peeves sneered before he flew up through the ceiling.  
  
"Your losing your grip, just relax." he told his head as his breathing returned to normal. Then he turned and sunk down to his dungeon room. It was not actually his, but it was quiet and no one ever came in, and lets face it, who would want to spend a long time in the room with Peeves. Of course this was something Peeves was willing to change for one person.  
  
The room was dim and crowded with self-filing cabinets of concrete gray, which matched the color of the stone walls. It was one of the dungeons that the files of alumni of Hogwarts. Most of the cabinets were covered in cobwebs and dust. Peeves glided through all of the cabinets to one in the back corner. He pushed aside some of the files in front to get to his stash. There were fireworks and dung bombs along with other items with unmentionable uses. He picked up a wad of parchment, a half empty bottle of black ink and a quill, which was losing strands of feather. He looked at them and decided that he would have to steal another first-year's bag soon to restock his supplies (they always had tons of extra they carried around with them.) He arranged himself on top of the cabinet and began to write a poem:  
  
With your graceful silver hair and piercing glare Your beauty is impossible to compare Bird's songs are too off key to be like your voice Which I will obey forever if it is your choice The moon is too flat to be like your breast They are more like pillows calling me to rest Your soft legs are completely lovely to my eyes Calling me to rub my hands up your thighs I'd sell all my dung bombs to buy you the world If your deep feelings for me were unfurled Oh professor McGonagall teach me in love Your transfiguration turns my heart into a dove  
  
Peeves stopped for a minute and collected his thoughts. Chewing on the end of his pen he pictured her face in his head.  
  
"PEEVES!" the Bloody Baron's voice rang through the halls. Peeves grinned to himself. The Baron must have found his fireworks spinning around the Slytherin commons room. Peeves put away his quill; he wanted to see the aftermath of his mischief. He turned around to put his poem away, but he was facing a large, bloody, transparent head that was glaring right at his face.  
  
"Ahhh!" Peeves screamed as he fell off the cabinet in surprise.  
  
"Happy to see me?" The Bloody Baron sneered at Peeves. "I bet you think those fireworks were really clever. Hmmm?" He looked down at the poltergeist.  
  
Peeves thought about answering the question yes, I think it was amazingly clever, maybe I should teach a class like Professor Bins. However he had another question on his mind. "How did you find me here?" Peeves stammered as he gained back his composer.  
  
"The Friar told me," the Bloody Baron answered simply. "Even if he did not tell me, I can find anyone I want in this castle. I've been around long enough to learn its secrets. This place." he gestured at the room around him stirring the air, "is not hard to find." As he looked around the room his eyes fell onto a piece of parchment that was floating to the ground from when The Bloody Baron knocked it off the top of the cabinet with the breeze of him moving his arm.  
  
Peeves instinctively dove for the parchment, but the Baron was much closer. He snatched the paper from in from of Peeves with a sly grin. "Now what might this be?" The Bloody Baron snarled. His eyes traveled across the paper, and they began to look stern. With a harsh raspy voice he muttered with a forced chuckle, "I would not be writing love poems about humans, especially professors, you don't have a ghost of a chance. I think I will keep this for future reference." Then the ghost disappeared through the wall with the poem in his hand.  
  
"Oh hell!" Peeves was terrified. The Bloody Baron knew about his crush on Professor McGonagall. Peeves felt helpless. He had no intention of ever giving her a letter or poem. He knew he was a poltergeist and she was a beautiful professor, but he did not really want to acknowledge to his head and heart. What would the Bloody Baron do? Will he show it to the other ghosts and professors? Would he show it to her? His head began to ach with the thoughts.  
  
*~*~*  
  
The Bloody Baron floated down the hall still reading the poem. He put it in his pocket and continued to walk distractedly. He accidentally walked through a group of first-years while he was going to the Slytherin dungeons. He glided in and went straight into his office ignoring the multi- colored smoke that still filled the green and silver common room. He sat down at the chair behind his desk and began to stroke his chin.  
  
"Does Peeves really love McGonagall?" He shook his head, but he knew the answer was yes. A single silvery tear rolled down his cheek and felt enraged at his emotion. "Why do I have to feel this way?! You're acting like Moaning Myrtle. If only he felt for me instead." He brought his fist down on the desk, but it just floated through. He wished he actually had hit it. The pain in his hand he could deal with, not the pain that was inside of him. "I'll make Peeves pay for how he is making me feel!" 


	2. A Little Chat

Chapter 2: A Little Chat  
  
The Bloody Baron had woken up early that morning. The pain in the pit of his stomach still wouldn't go away. He grunted and got to his feet. One of the good things about being a ghost was he did not have to get dressed. He tittered around his office for a while, moving things around, pretending to be busy. When he saw the wad of paper on the desk he remembered why his stomach ached. Quickly he crimpled it up and threw it at his silver waste paper basket. The paper rolled off the rim of the basket and fell onto the floor. He did not walk over to pick if up. Then he glided up to the Great Hall for breakfast.  
  
The hall was about halfway filled. It was buzzing with the usual morning chatter. It was enough to make the Bloody Baron sneer. All this happiness and excitement of young people was sickening. Professors Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Trelawny were already sitting up at the head table. The Baron was passing their table when all of a sudden Dumbledore stopped talking and called to the Bloody Baron to talk to them for a moment.  
  
"I received a letter this morning from Igor Karkaroff about a problem that they are having at Durmstrang, and I think that you maybe able to give some advise." Dumbledore told him, slightly smiling.  
  
He was a little surprised to be asked for advise by Dumbledore. The headmaster certainly knew about most everything about running a wizarding school than he did (of could he would never admit it), but he figured that he might try to help. "What is the problem?"  
  
"It appears that they have a brand new ghost who has come to their school, but he has an unusual situation." Dumbledore coughed slightly, "It appears that this man died while he was in the bath tub so he is not wearing any clothes. So now they have a naked ghost wandering around their castle. The female students seem to think that it is terribly funny. Which is obviously a problem and no clothes seems to stay on him when they want to cover him up. Do you have any suggestions?"  
  
"Hmmm." This did seem like a difficult problem, "They can't cloth him unless he wants to be, so I think that they should tell him to get clothed or they will go to their ministry of magic and force him to leave."  
  
"That is a very good suggestion."  
  
"That seems fair enough," Professor Trelawny added, "I was just about to suggest that."  
  
Professor McGonagall rolled her eyes, which reminded the Baron of the poem, and he glared at her.  
  
"If you have any more ideas feel free to share them anytime." Dumbledore added.  
  
"I think that I do have a suggestion headmaster," Something had just crawled its way into his mind, "I think that we should have a rule forbidding relationships between ghosts and the living members of the school. I have heard that there have been boys in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, and some of the young ladies in the school might be taken by certain head ghost's devilish good looks. The indecencies of such matches must be avoided."  
  
"I think I will propose that." Stated Dumbledore, "With all of those devilishly handsome ghosts floating around."  
  
All of the professors started to snigger. Peeves suddenly floated into the Great Hall. He looked up at the head table and saw that they were all laughing and the Bloody Baron was talking to them. The Bloody Baron walked away form them smiling and caught Peeves's eye and winked at him. Peeves tore out of the hall as fast as he could. 


	3. A New Notice

Chapter 3: A New Notice  
  
The next day a handful of Gryffindors were huddled around the message board. Most of them were giggling and chattering or asking what the new message said. It was easy to tell which one was new because it was printed on a half sheet of pastel pink parchment (because of budget cuts the school had to hunt down extra parchment to use for announcements and had ended up using the back of the valentine's poems that they had posted around the school last year for decorations).  
  
Peeves was naturally drawn to large groups so he floated over. He saw that Fred and George Weasley were both in the middle of the crowded laughing especially hard. Peeves knew he could not miss whatever trouble they were talking about. He actually had been running out of ideas so they might provide some inspiration.  
  
"It's a shame," George said flicking away an invisible tear from his cheek, "My passion for the Grey Lady will never be satisfied." He burst out laughing.  
  
Fred added, "Maybe you can ask Filch how to solve your longings." The entire group exploded in laughter.  
  
Peeves glanced at the new notice on the board. It was brief, simply saying: "School Rule #37620278 there is to be no inappropriate or romantic relationships between humans and ghosts in Hogwarts castle. If you have questions please ask Mr. Filch."  
  
"What?!" Peeves yelled out from shock.  
  
The entire group turned to look at him in confusion. Peeves turned red from embarrassment and then green with sickness. He flew away as fast as he could. From behind him he heard one of the twins shout to him, "It's okay Peeves. We wouldn't have worked out anyway, I'm an Aries, too free to be held to you." He could hear the laughing behind him, but he was too distracted to care.  
  
She didn't love him. That had to be it. Why else would she create a rule against their relationship? Could she not even tell him to his face? When the Baron had told her did she feel so disguised that she had run out and immediately made the rule? But wait a minute; McGonagall wasn't the only one who made rules. Maybe she was too embarrassed to refuse the rule in front of all of the other professors or Dumbledore could have made it without her permission because he was jealous that she really had wanted Peeves more than him. Yes, that must have been it. His love was being tragically ripped away from him. His Juliet was being pulled into the Capulets away from her perfect lover!  
  
Peeves wandered through the corridors and up stairs muttering to himself. "I must save my princess. I know she longs to be with me."  
  
"May I make a suggestion?" The portrait of Sir Cadogan looked at him hopefully.  
  
"Why not?" Peeves answered.  
  
"So your princess is trapped away from you by a magic spell and evil step mother. Right?"  
  
Thinking for a second, Peeves replied "Metaphorically, yes."  
  
"Does she have extremely long hair?"  
  
"Um, not really."  
  
"Does she lose a large number of glass shoes?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Is she in a state of heavy sleep?"  
  
"No," Peeves was starting to get tired of Sir Cadogan's questions.  
  
"Has she been swallowed by a wolf?"  
  
"No! You are not helping!" Peeves burst out as his patience disappeared.  
  
Sir Cadogan crossed his arms across his steel plated chest. "Then what is the problem?!"  
  
"She is trapped by rules and her own status, along with the fact that she does not know that I like her."  
  
"Well then," Sir Cadogan rolled his eyes; "You should just woo her and ride off into the sunset together, obviously. Come on be bold and get around the rules." Changing to a sterner tone, "You really should not complain with such a simple romantic issue other people have much more difficult situations, and if you will excuse me I have to find my horse."  
  
Hmmm, that did not sound like such a bad idea. He did not know what woo meant (though he thought he should look it up because it could be important to the plan), but he liked the riding off into the sunset idea. Peeves wasn't as good at getting around the rules as much as breaking straight through them, but he could always give it a shot for his love. Peeves rushed off to the dungeons to plot out his plan.  
  
(Short I know, but I hope I will another chapter soon) 


End file.
